What fears do people have today regarding humans' ability to
destroy the world?
Various existential risks have the potential to destroy, or
drastically restrict human civilization; could cause human extinction; or even
cause the end of Earth. Severe events could cause the extinction of all life on
the planet Earth, the destruction of the planet Earth, the annihilation of the
solar system, to the annihilation of our galaxy or even the entire universe.
Existential risks are distinguished from other forms of risk both by their
scope, affecting all of humanity, and severity; destroying or irreversibly
crippling the target.
Natural disasters, such as super volcanoes and asteroids,
may pose existential risks if sufficiently powerful, though man-made events
could also threaten the survival of intelligent life on Earth, like
catastrophic global warming, nuclear war, or bioterrorism.Despite the importance of existential risks, it is a difficult subject to study directly since humankind has never been destroyed before; while this does not mean that it will not be in the future, it does make modeling existential risks difficult, due in part to survivorship bias.
While individual threats, such as those posed by nuclear war or climate change, have been intensively studied on their own, the systematic study of existential risks did not begin until 2002.
Unthinkable as it may be, humanity, every last person, could
someday be wiped from the face of the Earth. We have learned to worry about
asteroids and supervolcanoes, but the more-likely scenario, according to Nick
Bostrom, a professor of philosophy at Oxford, is that we humans will destroy
ourselves.
Bostrom, who directs Oxford's Future of Humanity Institute,
has argued over the course of several papers that human extinction risks are
poorly understood and, worse still, severely underestimated by society. Some of
these existential risks are fairly well known, especially the natural ones. But
others are obscure or even exotic. Most worrying to Bostrom is the subset of
existential risks that arise from human technology, a subset that he expects to
grow in number and potency over the next century.Despite his concerns about the risks posed to humans by technological progress, Bostrom is no luddite. In fact, he is a longtime advocate of transhumanism---the effort to improve the human condition, and even human nature itself, through technological means. In the long run he sees technology as a bridge, a bridge we humans must cross with great care, in order to reach new and better modes of being. In his work, Bostrom uses the tools of philosophy and mathematics, in particular probability theory, to try and determine how we as a species might achieve this safe passage.
Are we still concerned about nuclear annihilation, or has
some other technology become a greater threat today?
The United States and Russia have agreed to reduce their
deployed strategic nuclear warheads by nearly a third. Efforts are underway to
rein in the spread of nuclear materials, but the threat of nuclear weapons is
still growing.
With the recent
signing of the new Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START) the two nuclear
giants continue to reduce the world's stockpile of nuclear warheads deployed on
hair-trigger alert. The new 10-year agreement calls for each nation to reduce
deployed warheads from the current ceiling of 2,200 to 1,550 within seven years
after ratification by Russia's legislature (Duma) and the U.S. Senate. It
replaces the 1991 START I agreement. Delivery vehicles such as missiles,
bombers and submarines are to be cut from 1,600 to 800. The treaty does not
appear to cut the stored stockpiles not deployed that are more than three times
larger.
Mutual assured destruction, or mutually assured destruction
(MAD), is a doctrine of military strategy and national security policy in which
a full-scale use of high-yield weapons of mass destruction by two opposing
sides would effectively result in the complete, utter and irrevocable
annihilation of both the attacker and the defender,[1] becoming thus a war that
has no victory nor any armistice but only effective reciprocal destruction. It
is based on the theory of deterrence according to which the deployment, and
implicit menace of use, of strong weapons is essential to threaten the enemy in
order to prevent the use of the same weapons by the enemy against oneself. The
strategy is effectively a form of Nash equilibrium in which neither side, once
armed, has any rational incentive either to initiate a conflict or to disarm
(presuming neither side considers self-destruction an acceptable outcome).
Concerns about the spread of such weapons dates back to World War II. After the detonation of the two U.S. atomic bombs over Japan in August 1945, the United States understood how massively destructive these weapons could be. The United States also realized the powerful security value of nuclear weapons. Through the threat of nuclear retaliation, the United States could deter almost any nation from attacking it or its allies.
These security benefits were not ignored by other nations. In 1949, the Soviet Union, head of the Warsaw Pact alliance in Eastern Europe, became the second nation to develop and test a nuclear weapon. Thus began the nuclear arms race. In the ensuing years, the two superpower foes built the largest nuclear arsenals in the world. But they managed to refrain from using them, a restraint that was tested most severely during the 1962 Cuban missile crisis that brought the United States and the Soviet union to the brink of war. Ironically, many experts believe that nuclear weapons have helped prevent such an outcome: neither side dared risk initiating hostilities that could lead to a devastating nuclear strike.
Today, with the demise of communism in the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War, concern over the threat of a nuclear confrontation has shifted to other nations, primarily those of the Third World. In 1974, India became the sixth nation to test a nuclear device. And in 1979, U.S. satellite photos revealed that Israel, in collaboration with South Africa, also may have tested a nuclear device. Both Israel and India, located in volatile regions with long histories of war and aggression, apparently sought nuclear weapons for many of the same reasons as the United States and the Soviet Union--to increase their security and protect their borders.
In the Middle East, the tiny nation of Israel has long been embroiled in conflict with its surrounding Arab neighbors. Terrorism and uprisings stemming from Arab-Jewish differences mark the region as one of the most unstable in the world. Since 1948, Israel has been directly involved in six wars or invasions flanked by traditional enemies--Pakistan and China. Here, regional disputes frequently erupted over the possession of Kashmir, a territory north of India now divided and occupied by all three nations.
The idea of these volatile nations possessing nuclear weapons has prompted much concern among theUnited States and other Western nations. They fear that a nuclear device in the hands of an irrational, militaristic dictator in Syria, Pakistan, or other Third World state could be used to threaten neighboring enemies, the United States, or one of its allies. They are concerned, too, with the possibility of a crude nuclear device falling into the hands of terrorists, who could then detonate it or use it as a form of blackmail.
But many Third World nations suspect of developing nuclear weapons assert that they should be allowed to obtain them for the same reason the United States and Russia have them: to defend their territories as best they can. As Iran's vice president, Sayed Ataollah Mohajerani, stated in 1991, "Since Israel continues to possess nuclear weapons, we, the Muslims, must cooperate to produce an atomic bomb, regardless of UN attempts to prevent proliferation." Arab leaders argue that their nations are victims of a double standard: the West condones the ownership of nuclear weapons technology and materials, but the United Sates, Russia, and others but denies it to Arab states. Arab states assert that they, too, would never use the weapons, but would merely have them to deter their enemies.
No comments:
Post a Comment